ALE

ALE delivers a highly tailored service on every aspect of the handling, transportation and installation of heavy loads, including lifting, transporting, skidding, ballasting, jacking and weighing, in a range of sectors, including civil, oil and gas, petrochemical, power generation, nuclear, renewables and offshore.

Press Releases

ALE has loaded-out two modules weighing a combined weight of over 20,000t for the Martin Linge platform project in South Korea.

The global heavylifting provider was contracted to perform both the weighing and load-out operations for the utility and process modules of the platform.

ALE’s specialist division, ALE-Offshore Services, executed the weighings using ALE’s centrally-controlled synchronised weighing system and weightors. The utility module weighed in at 9,580t and the process module weighed 10,850t.

The modules were then loaded-out onto the same vessel over two months. The load-outs took place in two separate operations using a specialised skidding system.

Edwin Blosser, Project Engineer for ALE said: “In consideration of the sheer size and scale of the piece, to perform the load-out was no mean feat. As the modules had a high centre of gravity, it was extremely challenging to load them out onto the same vessel and control the vessel’s stability. We utilised a computerised skidding system to overcome this, as well as quay jacks to monitor the load.”

The operations took approximately three months to complete, finishing the final load-out in December 2017.

ALE has increased its jacking capacity to over 100,000t with the introduction of new jacking systems and enhancements to existing technologies.

In order to fill a gap in the market and satisfy client demand to perform the jacking operations on three jobs at the same time, ALE has built four new towers for the Mega Jack.

ALE’s R&D team designed and fabricated the new towers in Breda, the Netherlands. Now with 16 towers, each with 5,200t capacity, the original Mega Jack has over 83,000t capacity.

In addition, when combined with the other jacking systems in the fleet, like the Mega Jack 800 and the new Mega Jack 300, this brings ALE’s total jacking capacity to a huge 100,000t.

“We are always looking at developing new solutions to upcoming challenges and work closely with our clients to find out how we can help them. We have seen an increase in demand for the Mega Jack and, as such, we decided to build additional towers to satisfy three projects that are taking place at a similar time,” explained Technical Director Ronald Hoefmans.

“This huge increase in capacity for ALE demonstrates our continuing commitment to growing not only our abilities to lift greater amounts and weights, but also our range and variation of

jacking equipment. These new developments represent a huge milestone for both ALE and the heavylifting industry.”

The Mega Jack’s towers will be utilised for the first time in Mexico in March, while other existing towers are operational on other projects in both Australia and the UAE. The Mega Jack 300 will be officially launched in March.